Scottie Maurice Pippen (born September 25, 1965) is a retired American professional basketball player who played in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is most remembered for his time with the Chicago Bulls, with whom he was instrumental to six NBA Championships and their record 1996 season of 72 wins. Pippen, along with Michael Jordan, played an important role in transforming the Bulls team into a vehicle for popularizing the NBA around the world during the 1990s.[1]

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Early life

Scottie Pippen was born in Arkansas Hamburg, Arkansas, and attended college at the University of Central Arkansas. At the start of his college career, the then 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) Pippen was a walk-on for the now-former NAIA school and depended on his stipend for being the team manager and his summer job as a welder to fund his education.[1] He eventually reached 6 ft 8 in (2.03 m)[4]. Pippen's 23.6 points per game average and near 60% field goal shooting earned the Central Arkansas senior Consensus NAIA all-American honors in 1987.

NBA career

Early career (1987–1990)

Pippen became part of Chicago's young forward tandem with 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m) power forwardHorace Grant, though both came off the bench to back up Brad Sellers and Charles Oakley, respectively, during their rookie seasons. Pippen claimed the starting small forward position during the 1988 Playoffs, helping the Michael Jordan-led Bulls reach their conference semifinals for the first time in over a decade. Pippen emerged as one of the league's premier young forwards at the turn of the decade,[5] recording then-career highs in points (16.5 points per game), rebounds (6.7 rebounds per game), field goal shooting (48.9%) as well as the NBA's number three leader in steals (211).[5] These feats earned Pippen his debut NBA All-Star selection in 1990.[5] Pippen continued to improve, helping the Bulls to the Conference Finals the 1989 as well as in 1990. However, in the Conference Finals versus the Detroit Pistons, Pippen suffered from severe migraines during the deciding seventh game as the Bulls were defeated.[6]

Pippen earned 10 NBA All-Defensive Team nods, including 8 on the first team. In 1992, he was named to the original Dream Team which competed in the Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. With the U.S. winning gold medal, both Pippen and Michael Jordan would become the first players to win both NBA championship and Olympic gold medal in the same year.[2]

Pippen without Jordan (1993–1995)

Michael Jordan retired before the 1993–94 NBA season, and in his absence Pippen emerged from Jordan's shadow. That year, he earned All-Star Game MVP honors and led the Bulls in scoring, assists, and the entire league in steals, averaging 22.0 points, 8.7 rebounds, 5.6 assists, 2.9 steals, 1.9 three-pointers, and 0.8 blocks per game, while shooting 49.1% from the field and a career-best 32% from the three-point line. For his efforts, he earned the first of three straight All-NBA First Team nods, and he finished third in the MVP voting. The Bulls finished the season with 55 wins, only two fewer than the year before.

However, perhaps the most infamous episode of Pippen's career came in the post-season of Pippen's first year without Jordan. In the 1994 NBA Playoffs, the Eastern Conference semifinals pitted the Bulls against the New York Knicks, whom the Bulls had dispatched en route to a championship in each of the previous three seasons. On May 13, 1994, down 0–2 in the series and tied 102-102 in Game Three, Bulls coach Phil Jackson needed a big play from his team to have any chance of going on to the conference finals. With 1.8 seconds left and the score tied, Jackson designed the last play for rookie Toni Kukoc, with Pippen charged with inbounding the basketball. Pippen, who had been the Bulls' leader all season long in Jordan's absence, was so angered by Jackson's decision to not let him take the potential game-winner that he refused to leave the bench and re-enter the game when the timeout was over.

Although Kukoc did hit the game-winner, a 23-foot fadeaway jumper at the buzzer, there was little celebrating to be done by the Bulls, as television cameras caught an unsmiling Phil Jackson storming off the court.[7] "Scottie asked out of the play," Jackson would tell reporters moments later in the post-game interview room.[8]

Teammate Steve Kerr elaborated when recently asked to recall the event: "I don't know what got into Pippen. He is such a great teammate and maybe the pressure was getting to him and he just could not take it anymore, no one knows for sure but he is a team player."

The Bulls went on to lose the 1994 NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Knicks in seven games. A key play occurred in the series at the end of game 5 when Pippen was called by referee Hue Hollins for a questionable touch foul on the Knicks' Hubert Davis in the waning seconds of the game, which allowed the Knicks to shoot the game-winning free throws.[9] This helped lead the Knicks to a seven game series victory. Because of Hollins' foul call, all seven games in the series were won by the home team and the Knicks had home court advantage.

Trade rumors involving Pippen escalated during the 1994 offseason. Jerry Krause, the Bulls' General Manager, was reportedly looking to ship Pippen off to the Seattle SuperSonics in exchange for all-star forward Shawn Kemp, moving Toni Kukoc into Pippen's position as starting small forward with Kemp filling in the vacant starting power forward position in place of Horace Grant, a free agent who left the Bulls for the up-and-coming Orlando Magic during the off-season. However, the trade was never made and those rumors were put to rest once it was announced that Michael Jordan would be returning to the Bulls late in the Template:Nbay season. The Pippen-led Bulls did not fare nearly as well in the 1994–95 season as they had in the season before—in fact, for the first time in years they were in danger of missing the playoffs (though much of this may be attributed to a lack of interior defense and rebounding due to Grant's departure). The Bulls were just 34-31 prior to Jordan's return for the final 17 games, and MJ led them to a 13-4 record to close the regular season. Still, Pippen finished the 1994–95 season leading the Bulls in every major statistical category: assists, rebounds, points, steals, and blocks; Pippen is one of only four players in NBA history to accomplish this feat.[1][10]

The Bulls' second three-peat (1995–1998)

With the return of Jordan and the addition of two-time champion Dennis Rodman, the Bulls managed to post the best regular season record in NBA history (72–10) in Template:Nbay en route to winning their fourth title against the Seattle SuperSonics. Later that year, Pippen would become the first (and to this date, the only) person to win NBA championship and Olympic gold medal in the same year twice, playing for Team USA at the Atlanta Olympics.[2]

In the following season, Chicago finished a league-best 69–13 and again won the title, this time defeating the Utah Jazz. Amid speculation that the 1997–98 season would be the last in Chicago for Pippen, Jordan, and Jackson, the Bulls followed up by topping the Jazz again in the 1998 NBA Finals to cap their second three-peat. Pippen was selected as one of the NBA's Fifty Greatest Players when the league was celebrating its fiftieth season in 1997.

Later career (1998–2004)

After being in Chicago for 11 seasons, Pippen, got balled on by Jordan in scrimage but hes also, the second all-time leader in points, assists, and steals in Bulls franchise history was traded to the Houston Rockets for the lockout-shortened season of 1998–99. Pippen's trade to Houston received a lot of publicity including his only solo cover of Sports Illustrated.[11] He teamed with Hakeem Olajuwon and Charles Barkley, but there were chemistry problems especially with Barkley.[12] In that season, the Rockets went 31–19, but lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs, 3 games to 1.

On April 22, 1999, Pippen was detained under suspicion of driving while intoxicated,[13] but the charges were later dropped due to insufficient evidence.

Following the lockout-shortened season in Houston, Pippen was traded in the offseason to the Portland Trail Blazers, whom he helped to the Western Conference finals. But once there, they lost to the eventual champion Los Angeles Lakers in seven games, despite holding a 15-point lead in the fourth quarter of the final game. Pippen played on for several more seasons in Portland, but they never again advanced that far in the playoffs. After the Template:Nbay he signed once more with the Chicago Bulls, but due to injury problems he was only able to suit up for 23 games in Template:Nbay and retired shortly after the season.

Pippen was a near-constant presence in the NBA postseason during his career, reaching the playoffs 16 straight years (11 with Chicago, one with Houston, four with Portland). He played in more playoff games than any NBA player except Robert Horry and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Retirement

After retiring, he spent some time working as a basketball analyst for the Chicago Bulls. He was a special assistant coach for the Los Angeles Lakers. On December 25, 2005, Pippen debuted as studio analyst for the NBA on ABC. Before this he was a part-time analyst for ESPN.

The Chicago Bulls retired Pippen's jersey number in a ceremony on December 9, 2005. The team played against the Los Angeles Lakers that night, and Pippen was reunited with Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan, Dennis Rodman, and Horace Grant during the ceremony. Pippen's jersey number, 33, joined Michael Jordan's 23, Jerry Sloan's 4, and Bob Love's 10 as the only numbers retired by the Bulls.

In January 2008, Pippen made a comeback to basketball at age 42, when he made a tour of Scandinavia and played two games for top Finnish league team Torpan Pojat (ToPo), and top Swedish league team Sundsvall.[14] In his first game, on January 4, Pippen scored 12 points in ToPo's 93-81 win over Porvoo. He registered nine points and nine rebounds in a 98-85 win over Honka on January 5.[15] In his third game of the tour, Pippen registered 21 points, 12 rebounds, six assists and two steals in 30 minutes in a 102-74 Sundsvall Dragons win over Akropol of Rinkeby. The Dragons paid Pippen $66,000 for his appearance.[14]

According to Investopedia, since retirement Pippen has lost $120 million in career earnings because of poor financial planning and bad business deals. Investment busts account for $27 million of the lost fortune.[16]

Pippen returned to the Bulls on July 15, 2010 as an ambassador to the team.[17]

Player profile

Pippen was renowned for his defensive abilities, having made the NBA All Defensive Team 10 times during his career and once leading the league in steals. Phil Jackson once described him as a "one man wrecking crew, capable of guarding anyone from the point guard to the five position." Pippen is one of three NBA players to record 200 steals and 100 blocks in a season, and he also has the record for career steals by a forward (2,307, as well as in the playoffs (395).